With current media receiving systems, a viewer may buy an antenna or subscribe to a cable service and receive free to air programs or other paid broadcasting signal. When the viewer desires to view a particular program in a time shifted manner such systems often lack the upload bandwidth to store the desired program for later viewing in the right relaxed experience.
Accordingly, a need exists for a system and technique that enables legally authorized recording and cloud storage of licensed content and playback thereof in a manner which is within the scope of rights contemplated by the content providers but which provides the viewer/user with increased flexibility to exercise their respective rights to record and view content in a convenient, time shifted manner.
In addition, even though commercially available set-top boxes (STB) are occasionally extended with DVR functionality, such STB's have a limited number of tuners, thereby limiting the number of channels which can be concurrently received for recording or concurrent viewing at different TV or other screens. In addition, such STB's typically have limited memory space contained therein, thereby limiting the amount of recorded material capable of being handled by the STB. In addition, the costs of such devices are increased with additional functional components for local tuning, rights verification and recording, etc.
Accordingly, a need exists for a set-top box which is more versatile having greater capacity for concurrent receiving, storage, receiving or playback of streamed content, as well as more cost-effective for the consumer in terms of device price and bandwidth requirements.
An even greater need exists for a system and protocol wherein network devices and the resources and bandwidth associated therewith may be collaboratively utilized for more efficient downloading receiving, streaming and storage of licensed content.